


Subconsciously

by Chekhov



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, wolfstar
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-03-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 16:46:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chekhov/pseuds/Chekhov
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter finds it extremely amusing that Remus' werewolf form likes Sirius so much. Likes Sirius enough, in fact, to groom him, and act rather... affectionately at times. Sirius, however, is of a different opinion altogether and Remus is not even partially aware of what might be going on during springtime. James? James just kicks back to watch. Or not watch, depending on which part it is. Mostly, he just wishes the two sexually frustrated canines on his team would figure something out instead of walking circles around each other. Marauders Era.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spring Fever

*

Many trails run through the forbidden forest - they are braided into its depths like a nervous system - leading here and there and then back here again, and sometimes ending nowhere at all. They never lead where you want them to, and you never want them to lead you where they would if you let them.

However, if you are wise enough to follow the north route for half an hour and then take a left turn at the gnarled stump that looks like a troll sat on it and follow it to the old hill with a hole in the middle and then continue a few miles west you might find yourself as a small lake in the middle of a clearing seeded with perfect little white flowers.

These flowers bloom during the full moon (which it is) and the lake is only so serene and crystal clear during the spring, when the forest comes back to life. The tree branches are laden with buds, the various caveats of the forest are teeming with creatures, and a playful breeze runs through the open sweep, bothering the small white tail of a stag standing off to the side regally, observing. 

A small rat sits on its antlers, tail swinging down in front of the stag's nose.

"This happens EVERY SPRING," the rat laments to himself. 

The stag turns its head, watching a dark shape tumble in panic through the flowers past them, taking out golf swing-worthy clumps of dirt. 

"It's like watching some weird, R-rated nature documentary," the rat continues.

The stag gives no reaction - obviously he wouldn't know what an r-rated nature documentary is, since he's a full-blooded wizard. Also, he seems to find this amusing more than anything.

A less dark shape follows the first one - this one is bigger and no less furry, and just as excited.

Maybe more excited. 

The first Big Furry Thing is tackled by the Bigger Furry Thing and they slide a few feet through the flowers.

"The werewolf's mating ritual is a fascinating subject for all to see," the rat narrates to himself with an internal sigh. "First he selects his object of love based on the amount of hair gel used and the amount of ego contained within. Then, he must ritualistically groom his life partner to rid him of the hair gel."

The said werewolf - aka Bigger Furry Thing - wraps its powerful front paws around the dog's - aka Big Furry Thing - neck and proceeds to drag his tongue from the base of his neck all the way up to between his ears. The ears flatten immediately and the dog whines, eyes flashing to the stag and rat in a fit of embarrassment and a silent plea for help.

The stag throws his head a bit, as if laughing, and the rat grabs tighter hold of the antlers, though he doesn't stop looking.

"The complex grooming ritual must continue until the werewolf is absolutely sure he has not missed a single spot on his love life's head. He has to - ooh, right in the ear!"

Now disgruntled at best, the dog lets out a protesting growl and his back foot, which is sticking out from underneath the werewolf's bigger body, kicks a little.

"The werewolf is relentless in his task, and it shows. That mangy dog is shining like a freshly popped out puppy," the rat praises. "Next, the ritual demands that the werewolf bites his partner gently in the neck - oh, I think he likes it."

The dog let out a huff, still trying to wiggle out, but falls still when the wolf's jaws close around his neck skin and pull gently before alternating to licking again. 

"If my scientific knowledge of the animal kingdom doesn't fail me, this is a way to get dogs to calm down - and it appears to be working. The werewolf's ministrations have caused them both a lot of happiness, and they're now...oh."

Before the fascinating nature documentary can continue, the stag swings his head and antlers pointedly to face the forest. The rat isn't sure whether it would be appropriate to look or not.

"Sad as it is, nature can't take its course," he narrates to himself. "Because of the um... physical circumstances. But the werewolf sure as hell is TRYING."

 

***

 

"Is it just me, or is Sirius mad at me?" Remus asks in a hushed whisper a day later, leaning in to speak to James across the table at breakfast. 

James glances at Sirius, who is across by the Ravenclaw table, smuggling toast - he looks unkempt (or like he'd been licked clean by a werewolf for two hours) and rather annoyed. James can see where the worry comes in - Sirius hasn't made eye contact with Remus since the full moon. 

"I wouldn't say MAD," the friend replies. "I'd say he's just a little over...whelmed...?"

Remus frowns. "By?"

"Schoolwork?" James hurriedly stuffs a muffin into his mouth and nods intellectually.

"Prongs, the last time Sirius was overwhelmed by school work was when he was 13 and someone accidentally fired an invisibility charm at a group of 7th year girls, effectively erasing all their clothes."

James raises his eyebrows, shrugs, nods, and then shakes his head - all of this while chewing his muffin.

Giving up the lost hope, Remus turns to their other friend. "Peter?"

Peter chooses this particular moment in time to choke on a biscuit, and it takes about two minutes of clapping him on the back to get him to recover. By this time, Sirius comes back and sits down next to Remus again, which cuts off any discussion concerning him. 

It isn’t as if Sirius is a particularly emotionally stable piece of work – and James is usually the first to point this out. His upbringing brings up many functional errors. Many of these manifest in abrupt mood-switches, unexpected explosions about unexpected things, and sometimes just periods of quiet for no apparent reason. 

James calls this Hexed When He Was a Baby. 

Remus, who is more familiar with family issues and the problems they cause, doesn’t call it anything. He just stares at Sirius, and then sometimes covers him with a blanket, and sometimes just pushes a piece of chocolate his way. 

This time, there is no chocolate. Sirius speaks normally, but he doesn’t face Remus. He seems short with James, as well, and packs up and leaves the table first, for some reason skipping out on the last ten minutes of breakfast to go to the washroom.

The day drags. It’s almost March, and despite the fact that the sky is clear, it’s still quite chilled in the courtyard. With no remnant of the fur to protect them, the four make their way to the Gryffindor common room after lunch. While Remus cracks open a book to read up on Charms, Sirius flops down on the floor by his chair to join James in a game of cards. Peter sidles closer to James.

“So what are we going to do?” he asks eagerly.

“We’re going to relax, Wormtail,” Sirius mutters, licking his finger to catch the edge of a card as he deals. 

“Relaxing isn’t fun.”

Sirius measures him with a cold look worthy of a Slytherin (no one dares speak a word about it) and then lowers his gaze. 

Peter doesn’t seem to want to give up. He continues the conversation with James instead, who is a tad more receptive. Remus, unwilling to become target to interrogation, buries his nose in his homework and scribbles mindlessly about some sort of theory. His mind is abuzz, however. He can practically feel Sirius reeking of something – smoke again? He promised to quit a while ago.

“Well now that the full moon is over, we should start planning for the next one,” Peter says finally.

Remus glances up instinctively, looking around for any potential listeners. The common room is empty, except for a seventh-year asleep on an open tome, her glasses askew. He observes the way she sleeps worriedly and then finally returns his attention to Peter. “Keep it down, will you?”

“Actually, just shut up, Peter,” Sirius adds. 

Peter puts his hands on his hips. “Seriously?” he asks. 

James snorts, but his smile quickly drops at the sight of Sirius’ disapproving glare. 

“I can’t even really recall what we did this time,” Remus admits with a sigh, flipping a page with his book. “Where were we? By the mirror lake?”

“Yeah, we took a hiking trip and scared the shit out of some Jabberknolls sleeping in the tree hollows up by the river and then made our way down there. The flowers are in full bloom now,” James replied.

Remus hums, though he didn’t look down at his friends. “I do remember the Jabberknolls. And the flowers. It was pretty peaceful, then, I assume?”

James glances at Peter, who glances at Sirius, who glares at them both while Remus looks at both James and Peter alternatively, finally starting to sense the fact that something is up. He closes his book, not even waiting for it to huff indignantly before putting it aside. “What?” he asks. 

Peter grins, and then pales when Sirius starts to get up.

“Mate, let’s not do this now,” James begs with the starting notes of a groan. “Let’s not.”

“Why don’t we just tell him about it and he can get the fuck over it,” Peter grumbles.

“Maybe I should bash your head in!” Sirius snaps, his hair bristling as he clenches his hand into a fist.

“Hey now,” Remus says, sensing a blowup imminent. The words sound suspiciously like something Sirius is echoing after having heard it from his own father. Without quite knowing why or when, he finds his hand on the back of Sirius’ neck, rubbing him there gently. “James is right. Let’s not.”

Sirius sinks back into his spot, and Remus swears his skin grows hotter, like he’s blushing. 

Peter snorts. 

Like the game of exploding snap, Sirius comes in fast and furious, except he explodes into a dog, and Peter, in turn, has half a second to turn rat and scurry under a chair. 

“SI-RI-US!” Remus barks, grabbing the dog by the tail as it tries to snap its jaws against the small crack under the chair. “Stop it this instant! Someone is going to come in and see you!”

“Padfoot, Moony’s got his head screwed on right – unlike the two of you!” James adds, grabbing his arms around the dog’s neck and dragging him back. “Would you change back already! You’re going to expose the entire thing you nut!”

There is a trembling moment of hesitation, and then the dog shrinks back into a 16 year old boy, panting and ruffled, like he’s just been through a wind tunnel. He throws James’ arms off his neck and then pushes Remus’ hands off of his knee, and storms upstairs.

After James and Remus catch their breath, the werewolf finally turns his attention back to the other two. “What in the bloody hell was that all about?” he demands.

The only one who answers him is Peter – with a terrified squeak from under the chair. Which, in Remus’ personal opinion, is probably the best place for him right now.

*

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Just as a note - Peter's monologue during the first part isn't meant to be heard by James or Sirius. Obviously they cannot speak as animals.


	2. Firewhiskey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Author notes: I haven't decided on a total length for this piece yet. Hopefully I'll continue to post often enough to keep you all interested. I'm estimating somewhere between 4-6 chapters?

The next morning is imminent. Remus realizes this as soon as he rolls over and the sun shines brightly in his face. This happens to be because Sirius’ bed has already been vacated and his curtains drawn back, so that the sunlight streams past his pillows and lands directly on Remus’. 

The werewolf squints, rolls back over to the other side, and then realizes that Sirius is NEVER up first unless there’s a Quiddich match. 

Peter and James are still asleep, so Remus pushes his feet into his old slippers, grabs a book (for self-defense, maybe? Or knocking some sense into his best friend?) and heads downstairs.

It’s not extremely surprising that Sirius isn’t there – but Remus doesn’t want to give up. He heads past the portrait of the Fat Lady, who informs him that Black did indeed head downstairs about half an hour ago, and follows him to the Great Hall. It’s not even really breakfast time yet, but the Elves always set out some food early just in case people need to get a bit of protein in before studying (this Remus tells himself comfortingly without knowing if there’s an ounce of truth in it) so there’s steaming coffee there already – and a Sirius, wrapped around a steaming coffee mug.

Remus sits down across from him and lays down his book.

“So,” he says.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sirius mutters.

Remus feels his eyebrows trying to peel themselves off of his forehead and flutter up, up and away. He knows it is a possibility – his mother’s eyebrows did it once, when he said he wanted to attend normal school with normal kids. He is very much like his mother, he is told. Or maybe the expression was ‘you are very much a mother’. 

“Sirius Black,” Remus says, wishing he had borrowed James glasses for the purpose of sliding them down his nose. “I am afraid that I must inform you of grave news. In this crazy zoo you’ve gotten yourself tangled up in, I am the peacekeeper. And do you know what my responsibility is?”

Sirius finally smiles – he smiles, bless all the nonexistent gods. Not all hope is lost. 

“My responsibility is keeping Peace,” Remus continues casually. “And I can’t really do that if you don’t even tell me what in the world is going on.”

Sirius lifts his coffee mug, sips, and when he sets it back down again, the bitter flavor seems to have drawn the smile away successfully. “It’s too complicated, Rem. Pete’s being a bloody git – and James knows it and he won’t stop him because James enjoys a great fight more than he enjoys my comfort.”

Remus takes the coffee away before Sirius takes another sip and takes a long draught of it instead. “Is your comfort compromised?” he asks, pushing the cup back to Sirius.

The Animagus stares at the lip of the mug, where Remus’ lips left a small drop of coffee when they parted. He seems to debate something internally, and then lifts it and licks it off before turning it 180 degrees and taking a sip. “It’s complicated,” he says again. 

“I happen to be excellent at deciphering complicated things,” Remus replies. “Padfoot, you’re not going to go around sulking for the rest of the year, are you? Have you got a letter from your parents that you aren’t telling us about?”

Sirius snorts. “As if. We burn those sacrificially together. I wouldn’t break a ritual like that.”

Remus nods solemnly and then reaches over for some bread, beginning to slather butter on it. “Right. So then do you promise to tell me?”

“Maybe when this blows over,” Sirius replies quietly, and now he won’t look up at Remus again. 

It is exactly like dealing with kindergartners, Remus thinks, but he can’t think much beyond that, except for the fact that Sirius worries him. He’s not fragile, per se, but he is extremely sensitive. Much more sensitive and volatile than he would ever let anyone know. And it isn’t his fault – but Remus feels like it’s his responsibility, because he’s the only one who’s relatively close to understanding the situation. James, even when he is at his best and his brightest and his most sensible, doesn’t really know what it’s like to not have the full support of his family. 

And Sirius needs support – needs friends – like he needs air to breathe. 

***

Another week passes, and the circumstances are these – Sirius refuses to speak to Peter directly, but he speaks with Remus and James more, and seems to relax gradually. By the second week’s coming, he is back to his normal self and even punches Peter in the shoulder jokingly, which, to Remus’ observations, means that he has made a full recovery. 

They plan an outing to Hogsmeade on the weekend, and it decides to snow, so they magic up some sleds and take turns going down the hill behind The Three Broomsticks. Rosmerta yells at them from the top of the hill that they’ll break their necks, and Sirius yells something probably at least a bit pig-headed – enough so to warrant the Innkeeper rocketing a snowball at him right from the top of the hill, knocking him off his sled and into a snow. After they’re done laughing, they scare some third-years by jumping over the fence and knocking on the door of the Shrieking Shack (Remus doesn’t partake in this – he merely checks his pocketwatch pointedly while Sirius and James bust their guts laughing over inside jokes). 

“It isn’t funny you know,” he informs them when they come back. “You know no one’s home.”

“No one home, Moony?” Sirius guffaws, ruffling his hair. “You don’t say? Hear that, Prongles? No one’s home!”

Remus rolls his eyes but says nothing while James chortles.

“We should get some firewhiskey,” Sirius says. “I feel like drinking tonight.”

“No you don’t!” Remus snaps immediately. “Tomorrow’s exam reviews in Transfiguration AND Potions! You’ll be too hung-over to pay attention!”

Sirius snorts. “The alternative is that I’ll be too SOBER to pay attention. Come off it Moony.”

“Don’t worry your head, Moonykins,” James adds. “I’ve learned me a mighty fine hangover spell for getting rid of hangovers.”

Remus scowls impressively, but it’s the middle of the month, and with the new moon approaching, his teeth aren’t quite as long and sharp as usual. “Will it work the same as your last hangover spell?” he asks.

James visibly winces at the memory and rubs his neck. “Uh, let’s hope not.” 

They come to a stop behind the bar and James turns to his best friend. “Paddyfoots, are you going to do this one?”

“F’course I am, Pringly-wingles,” Sirius replies, and searches his robes for a wand hurriedly. “Come on Pete. Moony, please protect my darling James for me.”

Moony measures him with an unimpressed look as they disappear, Peter diving under the door and opening it a second later from the other side and then allowing Sirius to descend into the cellar. They disappear in moments, leaving James and Remus to stand awkwardly outside, glancing around like the pair of unsuspicious teenagers that they are.

“So have you talked with Sirius at all about that… thing?” James asks unexpectedly.

Remus looks at him, taken off-guard. “What?” he asks. “Well… a bit I suppose.” He shrugs his shoulders. “Kind of. Why?”

“Just wondering if you worked it out,” James replies.

“You?” Remus asks. “You as in who?”

“The lot of you – the lot of two, I mean. You two. You and Sirius.” James doesn’t look directly at him for some reason. 

“We? Us?” Remus seems to be having difficulty with the intended plurality in the sentence. “I… what is there to work out? He was mad at Peter, not me. And a bit at you, said you’re not mad enough at Peter or something.”

James winces again and looks genuinely sorry this time – but then, James always looks genuinely sorry when it is least needed. “I suppose that may very well be true. But at the root of the problem… he didn’t talk to you at all, did he?”

“What in the world was he supposed to talk to ME about?” Remus demands, shaking his head in confusion. “What have I got to do with it?”

“You… he… alright,” James mutters and shifting from foot to foot. “Leave it to Sirius to run away from conflict. Or maybe he just hopes it’ll magically pass. But the whole darned thing will just repeat itself – mark my words. I’ll bet you ten galleons, in fact.”

“Who’s betting without me?” Sirius asks, popping out of the cellar looking pleased. 

Remus looks at him, and then at the jugs, and groans quietly. “Sirius, that’s too much. Go put it back!”

“No way! I bought this fair and square!” Sirius says, hugging the alcohol to his chest. “I left them money on the crates!”

James grabs one of the jugs from Peter, who looks like he’s about to topple over from running up the stairs. “Let it go, Moony. Let’s just go back. We’ll enjoy these in the evening. I’ve got the cloak right here, let’s hide them, quick, before Rosmerta comes around these parts.”

“She always did fancy me,” Sirius muses, pushing his hair back. “Let her come if she pleases. I’m ready.”

“Come on,” Remus mutters, pushing Sirius’ back to get him moving after James. “You can recite your confessions later.” He tries to concentrate on how upset he is about the fact that they’re illegally stealing alcohol, but another urge – a stronger one – suddenly tells him that he really needs a drink to figure out what James means. 

Because by the sound of it, Sirius is mad at HIM. 

***

It is always the most dangerous thing to say ‘the night of underage drinking started out swell’. That is because if there is any mention whatsoever about how it started out, chances are that the resulting ending is so horrifically unmentionable that Remus dares not think of it ever again, or hopes that he was at least drunk enough not to remember it.

This was the case with this particular night.

The night of underage drinking started out swell. 

James and Sirius down two glasses right off the bat, and Peter tries to follow suit but gags and has to be slapped on the back repeatedly and offered water. After Sirius sufficiently insults his ability of keeping down alcohol, both he and James turn to Remus, trying to get him to ingest at least some amount of alcohol. 

Remus presses his lips tightly together, clutching his bottle of butter-beer. Finally, they leave him well enough alone and proceed to start playing games – first they are simple games, like Exploding Snap. Then Peter pulls out something mysterious and muggle-like called Jenga. This amuses everyone, and entertains Remus enough to loosen him up and start playing with them. 

The evening quickly digresses into less sensible games, like Let’s Jump From Bed to Bed And See How Far Apart They Have To Be Before We Can’t Make It. This proves especially disastrous when Sirius, in order to avoid near defeat, cheats and turns dog to make his leap. This is followed by, predictably, Prongs transforming mid-hop as well and gracefully crashing right into Peter’s bed and breaking right through it and also taking off the entire canopy with his antlers. While Sirius rolls on the ground, howling with laughter and Peter stares, not knowing whether to be worried or impressed, Remus slides a little further down the wall and sneakily grabs the bottles of firewhiskey, draining them both while the two future alcoholics are distracted. 

By the time they get back to the bottles they no longer care that they’ve run out. James is trying to figure out how to fix Peter’s bed before McGonagall comes a-calling to check on the ruckus. Sirius, meanwhile, gets up and stumbles to the bathroom to pee and Remus stumbles stupidly after him, having already forgotten why it could be a bad idea.

“Som’ privacy, Moony,” Sirius says and then hiccups, though he doesn’t look concerned. 

“Privacy is a foreign word to you,” Remus says, and shuts the door behind them. 

Sirius shrugs and unzips his pants. “Suit yerself.”

Remus leans against the door. “Tell me what you aren’t telling me.”

Sirius screwes up his eyebrows, befuddled, and looks at the wall for a few seconds before looking back at Remus. “What…?”

“James says…” Remus wipes the corner of his mouth. His tongue still tastes like fire-whiskey. “He says you’re mad at me. From that… the week ago. Two weeks ago. After the full moon. When you were mad.”

Sirius squints. “Are you drunk, Moony?”

“No,” Remus promises, and he knows he isn’t, but he is tipsy. 

“I ain’t mad at you,” Sirius says. 

“James says we have something to work out. Do we?”

Sirius is now visibly annoyed, but he isn’t letting up. “James is a git,” he deadpans and zips his pants. “Now get away from that door.”

“No,” Remus says, and spreads his legs to have a heavier stance. “I’m not going anywhere. You didn’t even wash your hands. Did I do something to upset you? Because if I did, you should tell me.”

Sirius doesn’t look amused, and he doesn’t wash his hands. In all honesty, he could probably lift Remus and move him. But Remus has other things on his side. He can’t quite remember what they are right now, but he’s certain Sirius won’t succeed. 

“Let’s just assume James lied to you and be done with it,” Sirius says.

Remus crosses his arms. “I’m going to assume it’s something really bad, Sirius. Probably something worse than what it is. I’m assuming it right now. Right this second.”

Sirius waits for a beat, and then crosses his arms to match Remus’ pose. “Well?” he asks. 

There’s another moment of silence while Remus searches his brain for a possible explanation but for the life of him he can’t find any. None that make sense, at least. He kicks himself mentally and then skips back to his threat. What was the worst thing he could possibly imagine?

“Did something happen during the full moon?” he blurts out, although it makes no sense and doesn’t fit in with anything. Sirius and James and Peter all seemed fine, and rather carefree. Aside from Sirius, that is, but he didn’t appear hurt. And besides, if something had happened, he would have known. He had feelings about things like that. He had a sense. 

He also had a sense that something very wrong is going on because Sirius is distinctly not answering his question. And is also staring at him silently none of which are good signs. This, of course, brings Remus uncontrollably to the verge of panic in a matter of mere seconds. He feels himself breaking out in a cold sweat before he can even reason himself out of the hole with logic. 

At the same time, Sirius begins to look like he regrets it. “Moony, look—” he starts.

“What happened?!” Remus demands shrilly. 

“Rem…” 

“What did I do? What happened? What did I do?” the werewolf continues, hands now reaching for his throat. “Merlin, Sirius, what the fuck aren’t you two telling me?!”

Sirius reaches for him, but Remus flinches away. 

Suddenly, it’s Sirius who flares up with a mix of emotions. “Listen, you git, this isn’t about the bloody full moon, alright?!”

“What bloody? Who’s blood? What did I do? Did I hurt someone?!” 

“No one – for the love of… Moony, it’s a bloody expression!” Sirius yells. “This isn’t about that! It’s about something a bit bigger than your furry problem, alright?”

It makes absolutely no sense, because to Remus, there IS nothing bigger than the furry problem. This, at least, serves to bring him out of his panicked episode. He looks up, befuddled, and shakes his head at Sirius. “What,” he chokes out, “are you talking about? For the love of… just tell me, Sirius! Just get it over with!”

Sirius takes out his wand. “We’re not talking about this.”

Remus takes one look at the wand and then at Sirius. “What are you going to do, hex me?” 

Realizing that his threat is ineffective, the Animagus goes for a different strategy – puts away the wand and pushes his hands outward. “I still haven’t washed them. I’m going to touch you.”

Remus would feel amused, but now he’s just scared and confused and really unwilling to deal with everything. “I eat rabbits uncooked once a month, whole, without chewing,” he says, swallowing a lump in his throat. “You really think your dirty bathroom hands are going to scare me?”

This seems too much – Sirius spins in place and then sits down on the edge of the toilet. “That isn’t the only thing you do once a month,” he says finally.

Remus tenses. “What?” he asks. “What else?”

“Well, okay, not like… every time… but… you…” Sirius rubs his forehead. “Do you seriously not remember? You remember us chasing birds but not this?”

“Not WHAT?” Remus demands again. “Sirius, I swear if you don’t tell me right this moment—”

“I mean your very blatantly subconscious other half trying to get it on with me during the bloody full moon!” Sirius barks out. “And yes, that IS exactly what I said! Your brain – not your human brain, obviously, we’ve worked that out, thank you, I remember – but your OTHER brain, the one the wolf has – seems to think I’m some sort of lovely spring-time miracle for the purposes of multiplying and spreading your genetic code to the furthest reaches of the Black family pedigree!!”

The werewolf – or rather, the boy – stares at him with a lost expression. Finally, he screws up his face and asks in confusion; “Er… what? Explain that again. In English.”

Sirius rubs his face in a way that Remus thinks would make hamsters – and Peter – proud. Then he looks up.

“You humped me,” he dead-pans. 

The bathroom goes quiet – there is only the quiet click somewhere inside Remus’ mouth as his jaw unhinges and hangs open. 

Minutes – maybe hours – seem to pass like this, with the two of them staring at each other, unblinking. Sirius is going redder and redder, but Remus, in turn, is growing paler and paler. Finally, at the peak of their respective facial hues, there is a knock on the door and neither of them know whether it’s a blessing or a curse. 

“Come out of there,” the voice of Tom Martin, the Prefect says from behind the door. “You can have a fist fight when I’m not trying to sleep on the floor above you!”


	3. Memory Lane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning - starting you off with a flashback.

*

It was the end of the 5th year when they first decided to celebrate exams with a bottle of fire-whiskey. They weather was hot, the nights were cool, and the starry sky was beautiful from the astronomy tower’s turret. They dragged up a blanket and sandwiches, and all the alcohol they could carry and drank and laughed until the night swung around them and they felt dizzy with glee and free as birds.

Peter talked about something his mother used to tell him – a Muggle fairy tale – and James listened, asking for details more intently than one normally would. When Sirius asked him if it was a symptom of his latest plot to get with Evans, James shoved him into Remus and turned pointedly back to the rat. 

Fireflies tumbled in from the grass below in an updraft, and rushed over their heads in a flurry of green glows. Sirius laid his head down on Remus’ lap and kicked up his feet against the wall. 

“What are you going to do this summer?” he asked.

Remus explained that he had no specific plans. He left out the parts he knew would not be interesting to Sirius, like reading by the river, and documenting frog and toad types to get ahead for Magical Creatures class. He also left out the parts which he knew would make Sirius feel bad, like having to live through three full moons alone. He even left out the parts which would make Sirius feel awkward, like the fact that he planned to start having breakfast with his family again, maybe look at them more than once a day, try to pretend to be normal.

“So you’re not doing anything at all, it sounds like,” Sirius said. 

No, Remus admitted. He wasn’t doing much at all. He asked Sirius if he had any specific plans.

Sirius rolled over slightly, staring up at the sky. “Surviving.”

Against better judgment, Remus reached over and stroked his hair the way his mother used to stroke his, but still a bit awkwardly, since it was Sirius after all, and not his child. Sirius’ hair was soft, and he smelled good, but he was, for all intents and purposes, one of Remus’ biggest subjects of worry. Like a proper mother, Remus wanted Sirius to succeed and leave his horrible parents and his horrible house and hopefully go on to accomplish bigger and better things. Hopefully better than tormenting Severus, or maybe something like studying, though that was even less likely. 

“I could write to you, like last time,” Remus suggested out of the blue.

Sirius didn’t look at him. “I liked that,” he admitted quietly. “I know I never replied. Never knew what to reply with. You’d write me these giant lectures about the weirdest things, and they were fascinating but I never knew what to say.”

Remus nodded his head, as if this made sense. “Well, I suppose I could ask you questions instead. Like ‘what’s your favorite color’ and ‘what class are you looking forward to most?’”

“I like the lectures too,” Sirius said. He turned his head and looked at James and Peter, who had fallen silent. James, it appeared, was missing. Peter was quietly dosing on the blanket they’d brought. “What do you think of Evans, Moony?”

“I think she’s a nice girl,” Remus replied. “Though she does seem to bring out the absolute worst in James.”

Seeming to be pleased with this, Sirius sat up and leaned on one hand, looking at Remus. 

Remus leaned back. The proximity wasn’t commonplace – at least not when they were human. 

He didn’t ask what Sirius wanted – it was a silent question hanging in the air. 

“Do you think I’m handsome, Moony?” Sirius asked.

“Yeah?” Remus replied, and immediately wondered if it was the wrong thing to say. His heart was already beginning to beat too hard in panic. He should have lied or just brushed it off or something. 

Sirius leaned closer. “You wanna make out or something?”

“You aren’t that drunk,” Remus replied and put his hand on Sirius’ chest to stop him from coming closer. “Relax.”

“I’m not drunk,” Sirius said. “I hardly had anything to drink. I’m being serious. Because if you want to make out, I want to make out. I really want to know what it would be like.”

“To make out with a boy?” Remus asked.

“To make out with you,” Sirius corrected. “I know what making out with boys is like. James and I covered that in the beginning of the year. I want to know what making out with YOU is like.”

“So you want to know what it’s like to make out with a werewolf.”

Sirius grinned. “No. Frankly, I wouldn’t stick my tongue in your mouth when you have THAT many teeth. I said I want to make out with YOU, Moony.” He hooked his finger into Remus’ hood. “Come on, just for fun. Just to try it.” 

Remus shook his head. “This is a bad idea from so many angles.”

“That doesn’t sound like a no.”

“It isn’t a yes.”

“If you don’t like it once I won’t ask again.”

Remus gazed up into Sirius’ eyes, but it was hard to concentrate. It smelled like blooming flowers and stone. It smelled like summer was chasing him. It smelled like Sirius – overwhelmingly, inexplicably, like a cologne that only he was able to identify by a nonexistent brand. 

Sirius’ tongue tasted like firewhiskey, but he couldn’t taste it because his own did too.

 

***

 

“Moony,” Sirius says, and the edge of Remus’ bed sags. 

Startled out of his half-dream and half-memory, Remus yanks his feet under the covers like he’s afraid of monsters under his bed and sits bolt upright, disoriented. James and Peter are both asleep, finally. Peter’s bed is no longer broken. Sirius, however, is in the exact opposite place of where he’s supposed to be.

“What are you doing?” Moony hisses, grasping his bedsheets. “Sirius, go back to bed.”

“I want to talk about this,” Sirius insists. “This isn’t how we were supposed to talk about it.”

“You didn’t want to talk about it at all – and for a good reason. I don’t blame you in the slightest,” Remus says rapidly. “In fact I have no idea how you even managed to keep such a calm demeanor while sleeping in the same room with a molester. I’m going to move tomorrow, alright? But for now, can you please go back to bed?”

“You’re not moving anywhere,” Sirius replies with a frown. “Where would you go?”

“The Shack, the common room, the rug by the fireplace, who knows?” Remus mutters. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t endanger you like that again.”

“I wasn’t in danger,” Sirius says dryly. “I’m not some damsel in fucking distress. By far, out of all the things you’ve done as a werewolf, this is one of the most harmless and--”

“And the most disgusting,” Remus interrupts. “Look, no one should have to put up with it. I get that. Now will you please leave me alone?” 

“I’m not leaving you alone until I figure out what in the world you’re so upset about,” Sirius replies. 

“What were YOU so upset about?” Remus fires back, and then glances at James, who gives a sleepy snort and then rolls over. “You sulked for a week! Don’t tell me it didn’t affect you! If it was all good and fun like you say, this wouldn’t have been so detrimental to your mental health!”

Sirius scowls. “That’s not my problem with it. It’s complicated.”

“Sexual assault is actually pretty easy,” Remus cuts off. “I perform unwilling sexual acts on you, and you suffer for it. The end. Wolf or not, I’m responsible.” He points to the side. “Get off my bed, Sirius. We aren’t discussing this.”

“What are you going to do, ground me?” Sirius asks indignantly. 

“I’m going to make sure it doesn’t happen again,” Remus says. “Now off my bed. Please.”

Reluctant as ever, the boy obeys, and then stares at the curtains when they draw closed in front of his nose. “Remus,” he says through the thick red fabric. “You aren’t going to do something stupid like forbid me from coming with you next time, are you?”

“No one’s allowed to come with me,” Remus replies, his voice sounding muffled, like he’s speaking into a pillow. “You’re all staying home where it’s safe.”

“And you’re what, going to go suffer in the Shrieking Shack like you were doing a little over a year ago? Do you really want to go back to that?”Sirius knocks against the bedframe. “Hey. Answer me.”

Remus doesn’t answer him. 

“Moony, you’re being bloody ridiculous,” Sirius snaps. 

“Would you two shut up already?” Peter groans. “Get married!”

“Shut up you wanker!” Sirius snaps at him. 

“All of you shut it before I jinx you through the window!” James adds from his own bed. “Sirius, go back to bed, for the love of Merlin!”

“Remus is planning to stop us from coming with him on full moons!” Sirius announces loudly, turning around to face the rest of the room.

James lifts his head from the pillow, stares at Sirius blearily, and then at Remus’ bed, and then falls back into dead position. “Tomorrow.”

“But he--”

“Tomorrow!” James insists.

Sirius huffs and he puffs, but nothing he can do will bring the house down – not James, not Remus. Finally, he returns to his own bed, grabs the curtains, and closes them off with a scoff loud enough to penetrate through and reach Remus’ ears. 

And it does, but Remus feels like at this moment, he won’t ever leave his bed ever again. 

 

***

 

“Alright, I did say tomorrow,” James explains, sitting down on the edge of his bed and facing Remus’ bed. The curtains are still drawn, but James has a feeling their friend is just dead-set on never coming out again. “Rem, let’s talk about this.”

“Go away,” Remus replies from behind the curtain.

James claps his hands together. “Good talk.” He glances at Sirius. “Well, he’s all yours.”

“What are you talking about?” Sirius hollers, shocked. “You aren’t going to help me?”

“How are we supposed to help you? You had a row in the bathroom – I don’t even want to know what about. Now he’s mad. By the looks of it, this is something you two need to work out.” James spreads his arms. “What am I supposed to do about it?”

“Not be a fucking git and avoid responsibility at all cost!” his best friend snaps.

“It’s your responsibility,” James replies, and stands up. Peter, of course, follows suit, and ducks behind James for protection when Sirius cracks his knuckles. “You have two weeks before the next full moon to talk him out of this. Have fun.”

Sirius watches them exit, and then spins back to the bed. “Look, if you’re mad at me and they’re mad at me, I have no friends left! What am I supposed to do, huh?” He paces a bit back and forth in front of the bed and then turns to it again. “Rem, please just stop being so melodramatic. This isn’t the worst thing that’s happened. I mean… the humping…. Yes, it was embarrassing. More so because Prongs and Wormtail were staring, actually. But… “ He sighs and leans against one of the bed posts. 

“Actually, I don’t mind the licking,” he admits. “Kinda feels nice. Maybe because I’m a dog anyway, and cleaning myself makes sense. Either way, it’s not that big a deal.” His eyes sneak over to the curtains again and he tries to peek between the cracks to see if Remus is listening. Then, very slowly, he edges a finger in and yanks it open suddenly.

Remus is, apparently, not listening because the bed is empty.

Sirius gapes at it for a little while, then reaches over and pets the sheets and then leans down to look under the bed. He can’t see anything there either. Frowning, he walks around it and looks about, checking in the bathroom and then noticing James’ trunk, which is open.

On a hunch, he runs over and makes a quick inspection, and comes to the frustrating conclusion that the invisibility cloak is missing. The door to the dorm, is, of course, slightly ajar. Remus could have let himself out at any time after James and Peter left. 

“You IDIOT!” Sirius yells, not sure if he’s insulting Remus or himself. 

 

***

 

Let it never he said that Sirius Black is not full of determination and vigor. Sirius prides himself on both of these – and claps his hands over his ears and sings LALALA when James tries to tell him its stubbornness. 

It’s prep-for-exams day for the 6th years in every class – this sadistically ritualistic coordination never fails any year and it doesn’t this year either. Remus, however, doesn’t seem to care. Either that, or he comes to every single class under the cloak somehow and manages to avoid all of his friends. Sirius finds this plausible, so he makes up excuses to walk around the classroom at least a couple of times before the doors open, and then sits close to the exit and watches carefully for any opportunity for an invisible person to escape. 

When it’s 5 and Transfiguration lets out, he is all but given up. James expresses severe worry over his stolen cloak, Peter expresses severe worry over having not thought of this evasive maneuver first, and Sirius hates both of them passionately for not worrying over the proper thing.

He still remembers when he first arrived to Hogwarts – got Sorted, met James, and then Peter, and then Remus… Remus was a disaster. He didn’t like Remus at all. The boy’s quiet, expressive eyes seemed to judge him every time they looked at each other, and the only thing Sirius could think of was how a proper half-french boy like Lupin probably thought himself so much above the runt of the Black litter. 

Then, halfway through the first year, he finally realized that Remus kept staring at him because he was waiting for Sirius to attack HIM for being a WEREWOLF of all things. That discussion didn’t end well either.

Sirius punched him in the face, and then hugged him. 

It was a very confusing time in their lives.

James had always been his best friend. James was easy – it took no effort to get along with him, to plan with him, to laugh with him. Remus, it seemed, was always an obstacle. Either he was quietly shaking his head in disapproval, or he was worrying over something like schoolwork from the Hospital Wing, or he was trying to convince the other three to NOT DO THE THING – whatever the latest thing was. 

After a couple of years, ignoring Remus’ warnings became so commonplace that Sirius would probably feel lost without the practice. He always respected Remus’ intellect, (though perhaps not so much his morality) and it was easy to see how things devolved the way they did in the fifth year.

The fifth year – Sirius tried not to think about it. It was better left alone, that time. In fact, many hours a day Sirius devoted his meditative practices to NOT thinking about the fifth year. 

First of all, it was the year that he abruptly decided that he needed to expand his sexual malpractice into greater opportunistic fields. In a strictly statistic move that had nothing to do at all with ranging hormones, he gathered all the data he could find and decided firmly that if he was going to shack up half the school by the time he was graduated, he would have to account that only about 50% of the school was attractive enough to shack up with. 

And that 50% included both guys and birds. Therefore, if he didn’t want to risk lowering his percentage performance by any more, he would have to solidly step up to the plate and start snogging boys. 

James had been his first kiss – and he hadn’t been very thrilled about it. He muttered about Evans afterwards for a long time, seeming to be lamenting the fact that she wasn’t there to restore his dignity.

Sirius, on the other hand, felt his world explode into opportunity in a miniature big bang when their lips touched. It wasn’t so much about James – but just about the concept of being on top of someone with a dick. It wasn’t at all different from snogging girls. It was just… slightly dissimilar. 

James was also a piss-poor kisser, but that was beside the point. It was at the end of the year that things went south. When they climbed up to the Astronomy Tower and drank firewhiskey, and Sirius got drunk enough to get sad. And when he got sad, he got touchy. And Remus happened to be there. And he happened to decide that he was going to be stupid and wanted to kiss Remus.

And Remus did not want to kiss him.

At least, not a second time.

Not that the first time had been incredibly bad at all.

Actually, it hadn’t been the slightest bit bad.

It had actually been rather enjoyable. 

Actually, Remus had been just the right amount of drunk to grab his hair and pull it just slightly to make Sirius not be totally in control of the situation while he bit into Sirius’ lip and then licked his bottom row of teeth and now the memory had fueled an impressive 50% of his masturbatory fantasies. 

“Oi, watch where you’re going!!” a voice yells at him right before something heavy slams into his stomach, knocking all the wind out of him. He doubles over immediately, and looks up to sight a seventh-year student with a book-bag containing probably a library of condensed masses in books and cauldrons with a poorly-defined weight-adjustment spell. The student doesn’t even give him a second look, only mutters something about NETWS and rushes off.

Sirius, meanwhile, is left to lean on a wall and catch his breath. He doesn’t really recognize where he is – on the 4th floor, by the look of it, and near the staircase. After looking around, he slides down the wall and sits on the top step, pillowing his head in his arms and staring downwards. 

He still hasn’t found Remus, and it’s nearing the end of dinner. He’s hungry, and tired, and frankly, beginning to suspect that all of this is his fault after all. 

“I’m an idiot,” he mutters to himself.

“I wouldn’t argue with that,” a voice says from behind him.

Sirius looks around but doesn’t find anyone. Maybe it’s a painting – he looks at the oil on canvas landscape above him, squinting to find a subject, but fails. Then he looks at the armor standing in the corner by the staircase. 

“Well you could be more polite about it,” he replies.

“I’m here you git,” the voice says, this time from the side, and Sirius looks that direction just in time to see Remus pull off the cloak and sink down onto the same step as he is sitting on. “And here I thought you were looking for me.”

“Moony!” Sirius cheers, and grabs the boy up on a large hug without further ado. Moony doesn’t look immediately pleased, but he claps Sirius on the back a few times before pulling away. “Where in the bloody hell have you been?”

“I was skipping class,” Remus explains. “Close your mouth, a bird will fly in.”

“You?! Skipping class?! Have you gone mad?”

“Prematurely, it seems, yes,” Remus admits and folds his hands over his knees. “But then I went down to the Great Hall to see what you were getting up to and realized you weren’t eating with James and Peter.”

“I’ve been looking for you!” Sirius exclaims. “What do you think?”

Remus quirks an eyebrow. “Not doing a very good job, are you?”

“You’ve been invisible!”

“Actually, no I haven’t,” Remus informs him. “I wore the cloak to get out of the common room. After that I took it off and I’ve just been walking around between classes. I passed by you three a couple of times, and none of you noticed. You kept squinting at something in the distance.”

“Looking for YOU!” Sirius insists and throws up his arms. “Aurgh! Now you tell me! This whole time I should have just morphed into a dog and gone to sniff you out! What a waste of effort!”

For this, Remus smacks him with a roll of parchment. “Of course not. You better not have thought of it.”

“I did think of it. You’ve been getting madder and madder all day. First your stupid announcement that we can’t come with you during the full moon, now missing class… what am I supposed to do? We’re going to lose you altogether if we don’t catch you.” Sirius shifts, watching the other carefully for any signs of escape. “And you refuse to talk to us.”

“I’m trying to protect you,” Remus says. “Except you don’t seem to realize it. Sirius, I’m not exactly just some harmless Jack Russell Terrier who’s been biting at the legs of the couch, or humping the cat. This is much more serious. It’s plain to see what my werewolf form is completely incapable of allowing me to control my urges,” he said, voice falling quieter and quieter. 

Sirius frowned. “Well, they’re not technically your urges. They’re the werewolf’s urges, Rem. There’s a difference.”

Remus scowls and looks down, locking his fingers with each other and hanging his head. “They’re my urges too,” he mutters.

The Animagus chuckles and shakes his head, looking at his friend with amusement. “What, you have the urge to lick my hair and hump me?”

Remus grows a little more pale. “N-not exactly… the… whole… exact… those… words… but… the idea has occurred to me on multiple occasions.”

Sirius raises his eyebrows. 

Remus closes his eyes, clearly no longer capable of looking directly at Sirius. “Look, do you remember by chance that one time in the fifth year…?”

“With the firewhiskey?” Sirius asks quietly. “On Astronomy tower? Of course I remember. That was--”

“No, no, not that time,” Remus interrupts, and Sirius stops quickly.

“Not that time?” he asks, lost.

“No, this was back in like… Christmas time. During the holidays. We broke into the Prefects bathroom to go for a swim,” the werewolf explains. He leans back a bit and clears his throat. “You and James were showing off, splashing everywhere, striking poses, etc… and then you started to roughhouse and pretend to drown Peter. And James grabbed me and got me tangled up with you, and right as you got on top of me and I was about to kick you off, Peter grabbed your swim shorts and… yanked them down.”

Sirius considers this for a moment. “The memory is blurry,” he admits. “Or maybe it’s soapy. There were a lot of bubbles in that tub.”

Remus blushes – he actually blushes, and before Sirius knows what’s going on, he’s almost completely red. “Well, yes. But you basically ended up on top of me, in the water, and your… well…”

“My cock,” Sirius says helpfully.

Remus shudders. “Don’t call it that…”

“Dick,” Sirius offers.

“No, that’s too—”

“Schlong.”

“Sirius!”

“Weenie.”

“I WILL hit you, I swear to god!” Remus bellows, fists already clenched. “You know what I mean! THAT part of your body…! It was rubbing up against mine, because stupid dumb James was still pushing me down with his foot, so I couldn’t escape. And then you reached down underwater and pulled me up above the surface and--”

“And you were mad as heck and didn’t get out of the pool for like an hour!” Sirius exclaims suddenly. “I remember! I just thought you were mad at us for getting you involved in our fight! Are you getting me you were off sulking in the corner because you had to rub out a quick one?!”

“I wasn’t rubbing anything out!!” Remus yells, smacking him again, this time with his fist. 

Sirius rubs his arm. “Alright, so then what were you doing?”

“Lamenting!” Remus yells. “Lamenting my henceforth unheard of heterosexuality!”

Immediately, Sirius gives a loud chortle of amusement and tips himself back, shoulders shaking with hilarity. Remus, however, says nothing and continues to sit quietly, staring down the steps towards the third floor. 

The castle is pretty much empty now since everyone is in the middle of dinner. Soon, older students will start to trickle back to the common rooms but for the moment they feel like they are the only ones here. Just two kids, alone in a giant stone building. 

“If you had legitimately lost your heterosexuality back in that tub,” Sirius begins. “Why in the world didn’t you like kissing me at the end of the year, on the Astronomy tower? You refused to let me kiss you twice. You’re straight, Rem. Relax and stop worrying about it. If I had known this was such a point of concern for you…” He shook his head. 

Remus doesn’t answer right away. “On Astronomy Tower, I didn’t refuse than because I didn’t like it,” he says finally. “I just wasn’t supposed to like it. So I didn’t let you do it again. Because you have poor self control and ever poorer--”

“What?” Sirius interrupts.

“What?” Remus echoes.

“You LIKED it?” Sirius asks.

“That’s really a secondary concern,” Remus points out. “Please stay on topic, Sirius. There are more important issues at hand.”

“No there are not!”

Remus quirks an eyebrow and glances around them to make sure Peeves isn’t eavesdropping. When he turns back to Sirius, Sirius has scooted closer. Then Sirius grabs his sleeves. 

“You liked it?” he repeats. “Really? You like ME?”

“Sirius, be serious,” Remus says, trying to keep calm despite the proximity between them. “Everyone in this school likes you. Having an extra person who appreciates your form and face isn’t really a far stretch.”

“Sure, whatever that means,” Sirius mutters. “But I like YOU Moony! I really liked kissing you that one time!”

“That was a year ago,” Moony reminds him.

“That’s not too long. Let’s do it again!” 

Remus slaps a hand over Sirius’ mouth right before he can pull them together, and then pushes his head back. “No. Down. Sit. Stay.”

Sirius pulls back. “Why?” he demands. “If you like me – that makes sense now! That’s why your werewolf was so friendly, wasn’t it? Because you were suppressing it this whole time? And it is just reacting to your body’s natural urges, and you trying to keep it a secret from me was spilling out onto the surface and manifesting itself in the form of--”

“Yes, alright,” Remus interrupts, putting his hand over Sirius’ mouth again and keeping it there this time. “There might be something to that. But that’s exactly why it’s a problem. The werewolf thing.”

The werewolf’s friend reaches up, peeling back his fingers from his lips. “I know you’re a werewolf Rem. That isn’t a problem.”

“It’s going to be a problem!” Remus snaps. “Do you think this is some dumb fairy tale, Padfoot? You think this is going to end in some frankeinstein’s wedding? How many werewolves do you see in a relationship, Sirius? How many? I’ll tell you how many - ZERO. Sometimes, maybe, in werewolf communities, they might try to facilitate a relationship with one another. But it never lasts!”

The sudden outpour is so shocking Sirius doesn’t even quite know what to say. He sits back, staring at Remus while the other rants, seeming to grow paler and paler despite the fact that it’s nowhere near the full moon. 

“…and I’ll tell you another thing! Relationships with werewolves are all but illegal! And you know what else? They should be! Because guess what kind of an expiration date I have? I’ll be the first of us to die! I know it! I know it for a fact!” Remus jabs his finger into Sirius’ chest. “You and James and even Peter – you’ll all live till your teeth fall out, and till you see new spells pop up in new languages, and until Hogwarts turns over, and there’s new schools, new Ministry… but I’ll be gone! I’ll be the first to expire, because that’s my fate! That’s all I will ever amount to, no matter where I go!”

Sirius shakes his head slowly. “Moony, that’s not true. You might--”

“Might what?! What do you know?” Remus snaps. “What do you know about having to put up with that kind of thing? You’ve given me the ultimate sacrifice already, all of you have! You’ve risked your lives with magic to give me at least a little bit of peace! Now you think you’re such a prince charming – you can just waltz in here and save me with a glass slipper or something?”

“A what?” Sirius asks, befuddled by the Muggle reference. 

“I’m not going to be saved by a relationship – or by you, or by anyone! I’m always going to be broken, and dangerous! I won’t ever hold down a job, or proper housing! And I’m always going to be waiting to die!” Remus rants without skipping a beat. Then he stands up. 

Sirius stands with him, not sure what to do.

“Forget about your stupid ideas for your next adventure,” the werewolf tells him, shoving the invisibility cloak back into his hands. “I don’t know what you expected to come from this stupid plan of kissing me. But it isn’t going to happen. It’s never going to work.”

The footsteps ring on the stairs as Remus Lupin marches off. Sirius stands there, where he is left, staring after him a little shocked and a little hurt at the same time, but somehow he can’t find it in himself to say that Remus is wrong. Some part of him did want an adventure out a relationship. Not just a regular relationship of going to little cafes and holding hands. He wanted an adventure with Moony, to be able to run together through the forbidden forest, to be able to climb into secret passageways, to be able to steal potions together and snog out about it afterwards.

Now, it seems, that he isn’t going to get any of that, single or with Remus. 

*


	4. Salt on the wound

*

When Lily first walks past James it’s with a brisk air, already preparing herself mentally. She has her maneuvers ready. She flips her hair. They have rehearsed this, time and time again. She knows what he’ll say, and he knows what she’ll say, and they both know it might lead to something, or maybe something else.

It’s only at the end of the hall that she realizes that something is wrong.

Nothing has happened.

She stands there for a whole five seconds, staring straight ahead. Then she tucks her hair behind her ear, chews her lip, and turns around and marches back to James, who is sitting on the window sill, staring at his owl.

“What’s the matter?” she asks him worriedly.

James looks up at her and his whole body recoils in surprise, as if he didn’t notice her there.

“Evans!” he gapes. “I didn’t notice you there!”

Lily leans back, puts her hand on her hip. “Excuse me?” she asks.

He looks just as shocked. 

“Hello,” he chokes out. “I mean… you… look fantastic.”

She tilts her head, watching him scramble to make up for this single mishap. It’s a novelty. He always notices her. Even when she doesn’t want him to.

“What’s the matter?” she repeats.

“Oh, well, that’s… important…” James clears his throat. “Mara--” His voice jumps an octave. “Mar—fuck.” He coughs. “Important Marauder Business.” Then his voice jumps a few octaves again, this time for a completely different reason. “OhMerlin!”

Lily doesn’t care to withdraw her wand tip from the soft skin of his throat, where she is pointing it. “Tell me what’s wrong, James Potter.”

“What’s the magic word?” he whispers in terror.

She snorts and flicks him with the wand. It hurts. It’s also arousing. “Please,” she adds.

James rubs his neck and huffs quietly, eyes downcast. “Oh, just, you know. My friends.”

“I know their names,” Lily encourages. “What’s the matter? Did you have a fight?”

“Well, no,” James replies. “Not really us. They did. Remus and Sirius.”

Lily frowns, visibly thrown for a loop. She’s still a lot prettier than anyone who’s ever been in a loop before, of any sort. “Remus?” she asks. “Remus is a sweetheart. He doesn’t fight with anyone.”

“He’s fighting with Sirius. They’re not on speaking terms.”

“Since when?”

“Since two days ago.”

They both sit back a bit, considering this. More students walk by them, and Lily observes them. A few Hufflepuffs from her Potions class point at them and giggle knowingly. She looks away, back at James, trying to find something funny about him. Everything is – his funny hair, his glasses, the way he slouches like a 3 year old, befuddled. 

“What did they fight about?” Lily asks him. 

“I think they want to shag,” James blurts out.

Lily doesn’t stop observing. She isn’t as surprised as she expected herself to be. “Why do you think that?”

“Well, have you SEEN them? They fight, they argue, and Remus scolds Sirius for being a git – they MUST want to get with each other, right?” James demands, as if groping for evidence.

The redhead measures him with her most potent, least amused glare. “Potter, not everyone who mirrors the display of our level hostility wants to get with one another.”

Potter gazes back at her. “Why not?”

“Because if that was how the world worked, Slughorn and Filch would be all over each other behind the Ballroom, and we both know we don’t want that to happen.”

James makes a disgusted face. “Merlin, Lily! Your imagination is as dark and dangerous as the DADA NEWTS!”

“Which you’re going to fail,” Lily replies. “If you don’t stop playing cupid.” She pauses for a bit and looks around, as if wondering if the subjects of their conversation are in the process of sneaking up and eavesdropping on them. “Besides, I think Remus isn’t the type to have any relationship whatsoever.”

James’ face already disagrees. “Why do you think that?”

“I don’t think that, I know that!” Lily says. “We study together every weekend, we talk! He’s not exactly fond of himself. Has some major issues with confidence. Seems to think he won’t ever be successful, no matter what. I told him to work for the Ministry the other day, and you know what he said to me? He said ‘Lily, I’m not sure if the Ministry will fancy hiring me after they’re done scraping my insides off of their walls’.”

Although she doesn’t understand why, James’ features morph into a grim smile.

“It isn’t funny!” she snaps at him.

James shakes his head. “It absolutely isn’t. But you don’t know Moony like we know him. There’s certain… other factors at play.” He shakes his head. “Still doesn’t mean he wouldn’t want to shack up with someone… eventually.”

“Well, if he’s convinced he’s no good, then why would he ever allow someone else to be convinced of it?” Lily demands, throwing up her hands. The owl James holds hoots and flaps its wings a few times, taking off up into the rafters. They watch it go, and then turn back to each other. “Listen,” she says after it’s long gone. “Remus doesn’t want a relationship. I’ve asked him out before.”

“You WHAT?!” Potter yelps.

She almost wants to reach out and pat his head to comfort him, but instead ends up talking more: “I wanted to get back at you for making fun of me in the fifth year. You were driving me more mad than usual, so I thought – if I was with someone else, you’d leave it alone. And Remus was… available. So I asked him.”

James narrows his eyes. “Tell me that his brotherly honor prevented him from agreeing…” 

Lily shrugs. “It might have been honor, but it looked more like terror to me. He was absolutely mortified that I’d even gone there. I think he must have misheard me and thought I was asking him to stab me with a moldy kitchen knife.”

James looks away. Instead of looking upset, like Lily thought he would, he looks upset in a different way. He looks upset like he’s disappointed – but not in Remus. Except yes in Remus. Except not jealous.

“What is it?” she asks, frustrated with the mystery of his strangely unique facial expressions. “What are you thinking about?”

“I’m thinking that you’re probably right,” James sighs. “Remus doesn’t think he’s relationship material. He’s probably afraid to… to hurt them.”

“Remus wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Lily argues.

They’ve come full circle, but this time, James sees it from a different perspective. He sees, suddenly, the wolf. Not the wolf in the field of flowers, tromping after a mildly ruffled and embarrassed dog. But instead the wolf that bends low over the ripped carcass of a rabbit, blood splashed on its muzzle, lips pulled back. 

One wrong move, he realizes, and it could be Padfoot.

There’s no other route, it seems.

Risk, or loneliness. 

In comparison, his and Lily’s relationship seems like a walk in the park.

“I just want you to know,” he says, suddenly inspired, and puts his hand on hers in between them. “…I really love what we have. I wouldn’t change it for anything.”

Lily slips her hand out from underneath his, shoulders her bag and turns, hair spinning in a copper carousel. “That’s only because you didn’t keep the receipt,” she says, and walks away, leaving him there.

James looks after her, looks around, and then stands up. 

“What’s a receipt?” he asks quietly. 

 

***

 

“Peter, will you please pass the salt?”

Peter looks up, fork inches from his mouth, and looks sideways at the mentioned object. It sits precisely two inches from Sirius’ hand, at the optimal location for Remus to have asked him, specifically, to move it. Instead, Remus directs his gaze only at his book while chewing a limp salad. 

Sirius doesn’t make a motion to move the salt anywhere. He is busy cutting up his chicken into miniscule pieces. 

With a sigh, Peter reaches over, takes the salt, and places it in front of Remus’ book. “Can you two stop this now?” he asks. “It’s been three days.” 

Neither Remus nor Sirius reply. They’re both engrossed in their given activities. Furiously, silently. In fact, Peter never thought that reading was an activity which COULD be done in anger. But Remus has proven him very, very wrong. 

“James, mate, do you have the paper?” Sirius asks. 

James looks up, puts down his spoon, and looks at Remus, who has the paper folded behind his book. “No, I don’t,” he replies, and then looks back at Sirius. “Remus has the paper.”

Sirius precariously pulls a vein from the chicken leg and snips it with the knife, re-enacting some Muggle horror film they snuck into last summer. “Mind grabbing a paper for me, Jamesy?”

Jamesy rubs the bridge of his nose. “Remus, can Sirius please borrow the paper?” he says.

Remus flips the page of his book. “No,” he says.

Sirius stabs his chicken with a bit more vigor.

Peter shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “Rem, could I see the paper?”

Remus smiles and passes it along. “Of course Pete.”

“Here Sirius,” Peter mumbles, and puts it immediately in front of the other. “Relax, would you?”

Sirius takes it. “Thank you, dear friend,” he says, and then snaps it open hard enough to rip some of the front pages before lifting it pointedly in front of his face, hiding himself behind it.

Remus glowers at him for a moment before lifting his book to do the same.

James and Peter exchange long, silent looks that are only privy to two victims of a terrible plot who both know that they are prevented from saying anything out loud, lest they endanger their lives even more. 

Sirius flips a page and pulls out a quill from his bag, sucking on the tip and then sticking it behind his ear. Then he frowns. “Prongs, what’s a spell invented in 1934 to prevent measles?”

James lifts his eyebrows. “What?”

“Eight letters,” Sirius continues.

Remus’ grip on his book tightens. “Peter,” he says evenly. “May I please have my paper back? I fancy a crossword.”

Peter is frozen in place. “Sirius is doing the crossword right now,” he says quietly.

Remus doesn’t look up, but his fingers flex again. “I am aware of that,” he says. “But I’d like to complete the crossword myself.”

“What about,” Sirius interrupts. “A spell which has an effect on all spells but physical charms? Fourteen letters.”

James clears his throat uncomfortably. “I’m not too good at those, mate,” he says. “Moony usually--”

“Or how about—oh, this one’s nineteen letters! A spell that—”

“Peter,” Remus growls. “Where is my paper?”

Peter looks quickly at Sirius, and then back at Remus. “Padfoot’ got it. He’s almost done.”

Remus is fuming. “Will you kindly tell Mister Padfoot that he needs to surrender the paper to me, before he marks up the crossword section with the incorrect answers?”

Peter turns to Sirius, who is acting as if he hadn’t heard a thing. “Padfoot, Moony wants his paper back.”

Sirius scratches his chin with his quill. “You can tell Mister Moony that he’ll have his paper back when I’m done with this crossword,” he replies.

Peter turns back to the first one. “Remus, Sirius says he won’t give up the paper.”

Moony slams his book shut. “Peter, inform Mister Padfoot that when I bought the paper, it was not for the intention of letting stray dogs pee all over it, and he isn’t house trained.”

Peter opens his mouth, closes it, and then slowly turns back towards Sirius. “Padfoot, uh, Moony says… he… um…” 

“You can tell Mister Moony,” Sirius growls. “That me peeing all over this paper might be a last resort at communication, seeing as all other methods seemed to have seized for him, AND,” he adds, smacking the paper open harder. “Seeing as peeing is a dog’s proper way of relaying messages, my peeing on it might just be the only way I know to get through to his thick skull.”

Peter glances at Remus. Remus doesn’t look at Peter. He’s glaring at Sirius now. “You can tell Mister Padfoot,” he snaps, voice rising. “That it’s not MY methods of communication that are poor but his bloody obnoxiously large ears, which seem to serve no other function than to take the things I explain to him clearly and pass them through his empty head, and let them out the other end!”

Sirius yanks the paper in half, glaring back at Remus now. “Peter!” he snarls. “You can tell Mister Moony that his sorry-ass excuse for an explanation is nothing more than a coward’s way of saying that he doesn’t trust me to understand the delicacy of the situation and if he were a real man, he might just say that he doesn’t fancy my ass to my face!”

“Peter!” Remus rumbles. “Kindly remind Mister Padfoot that I am not, in fact, a real man, and if he is in fact forgetting this once again, he can be sure that I fancy his ass to his face, because at least his ass doesn’t speak of inane, completely delirious things that are plain out impossible!”

Sirius is now crumpling what remains of the paper in his hands. “Peter!” he roars. “Tell Mister Moony that I’ll accept that sometimes my ass is finer than my face, but that does not at all explain how he expects me to prove to him that I do not care about his man-not-man dilemma, seeing as I’ve been living with it for quite a while now and am quite aware of all its anatomical, risk-factor and emotional properties!”

Remus stands up. “You’re not the one living with it!” he yells, and suddenly stumbles away from the bench and storms off.

James turns his head, watching the wizard robes sway around him until the tiny figure disappears through the doors. He clears his throat and looks at Sirius meaningfully. “Very interesting methods you two have,” he admits. “Can’t say if it’s an improvement to the one Lily and I developed. But judging by the outcome, you might need to try a different approach.”

Sirius makes a frustrated groaning noise, tears the remains of the paper into tiny(er) sheets of paper, throws them all into the air and then grabs his things off of the floor, storming out right after Remus. 

Satisfied, James turns back to Peter. “Wormtail,” he says. “Pass the salt.”

*


	5. Slippers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: mildly nsfw up ahead.

It’s a particularly cold night, despite it being spring. Sirius has already pushed the winter bedcovers down onto the floor and the House Elves put it away for the year. Of course, on this particular night they’ve supplied James and Peter with them again, but the House Elves never did like Sirius enough to be so considerate. So when he wakes up in the middle of the night and the thin covers are uncomfortable, he decides to just say Fuck It and go for a walk through the halls to warm up. 

He rolls off of his bed successfully, and sneaks over to Remus’ bed to grab his warm slippers – only to realize that they aren’t there. There’s no telling what might have happened – maybe Remus tossed them. Maybe he realized that Sirius frequently borrowed them for his late-night trips to the bathroom and decided to throw them off the Astronomy tower. 

The list of possible mean-spirited attempts to throttle their relationship is long now. Sirius isn’t sure if it’s being done on purpose or not, but Remus is moving farther and farther away. They argue, they ignore each other, and they communicate through passive-aggressive gestures of sorts.

Despite all of this, Remus feels exactly as close as before – an arm’s reach. Just like he always was, no matter if he sat on the other side of the room or was in another part of the country, on summer break. Remus always felt close enough to reach over and touch. 

“I just don’t know what’s going on!” Sirius complained to James. “Are we fighting or aren’t we?!” This was two days ago.

James had shrugged at him and looked down the Gryffindor table. “I don’t know mate. Lily and I – are we fighting or aren’t we?”

Sirius looked at him and said honestly: “I don’t know anymore.”

James gave a shrug. “Neither do I.”

This, of course, did not really help Sirius figure out his own feelings. Even now he feels as if their arguments are petty in comparison to whatever is brewing on Remus’ mind. The full moon grows ever closer, and every time the werewolf looks more gaunt. As it waxes, Remus wanes, until the shadows from the universe around him turn him into only a crescent of himself, and only the light of his yellowed eyes remains.

Sirius’ trek downstairs is slipper-less, but he doesn’t care. He steps out of the portrait hole barefoot, wraps a scarf around his own neck and grabs his elbows to shiver while jogging down to the windows. The window outside is wet – that’s probably why it’s so cold. It’s an incoming April month, and they’d seen but two days of sunshine so far. It seems oddly fitting to him, with their moods. 

For a while, he sits on the sill, and then shivers and makes his way down the hall, past the statue and the multiple tapestries. He leans across the staircase on the other side, thinking and squeezing his own cold fingers in a feeble attempt to warm them up.

If only, he thinks, Remus would just stop running away from everything. 

It seems unfair – and strange to boot – but Remus avoids conflict like Peter avoids homework assignments. With great emotional devotion, by running away. As soon as there’s a hint or argument in the air, Remus bolts from the scene, leaving only dust in his wake. It’s been the same for years. They literally had to chase him down the first time they tried to talk to him about the full-moon thing. 

He explained in the fourth year, sheepishly, that it was a knee jerk reaction. Running and walking away made his nerves calm. 

Nerves calm… Sirius snorts. Yeah right. It also does absolutely nothing to help the situation at hand, does it, scaredy wolf?

“Excuse me?” a voice behind him asks. 

Sirius whirls around, hackles standing. But of course – it’s Remus. The only person capable of sneaking up on him in the middle of the night. 

“What?” Sirius gapes.

“What did you just say?” Remus asks, narrowing his eyes.

Sirius opens his mouth and closes it. “D-did I say it out loud…?” he mumbles, lost, and then realizes he did. He looks down at Remus’ feet, which are encased in warm slippers. “Where have you been hiding those?!” he demands instead.

Remus looks at his feet, which are not covered in anything, and sighs. “I was planning to go for a walk and pulled them on, and then I heard you getting up.” He shrugs and his eyes, which now reflect light, flash blue and gold in the pupils for a moment. “So I closed the curtains quick. And then you spent half an hour snuffling around the foot of my bed.”

Sirius tries to look properly indignant. “I was not snuffling.”

“Right,” Remus says, and toes off the slippers. “Here, have them. I know you wear them. I’ll just go back to bed.”

Sirius narrows his eyes. “That’s it? Not even a lecture for being out at night?”

“You’re old enough to know better now, and still young enough to not care, so what’s the point?” Remus tells him, and then pushes the slippers over. “Besides, I don’t want to be out here with you. I’m going to bed.”

“Hey, now hold on a second!” Sirius argues, and tries to grab for his hand but Remus just bounces away and begins heading back. 

“No,” he replies.

Sirius takes after him, slippers completely forgotten. “Will you stop running away?”

“No,” Remus repeats, and turns the corner to the hall with the tapestries. 

“We aren’t solving anything this way!” Sirius insists, no longer making grabbing attempts but instead dogging the other a foot behind. “Do you want us to be the next Evans and James? Going around arguing all the time?”

“I don’t want us to be the next anything!” Remus growls. “I want to go to bed!”

“And avoid me for the rest of your life?” Sirius demands. “Why not just break up with me then?!”

Remus whirls on him abruptly. “We’re not DATING!”

“I mean FRIEND break up with me!” Sirius snarls.

Remus looks taken aback. He looks down, and then seems to notice Sirius’ bare feet. “Where are my slippers?”

Sirius looks down. “I… shit, I left them back there…” 

As if on cue, they both turn around and head back the way they came, and this time Remus is in pursuit. “I want to be your FRIEND, Sirius, but we can’t be anything more!” he rants. “And every time I try to tell you, you aren’t listening!”

“I am listening!” Sirius argues. “But you just run off! How is that supposed to help?”

“It’s not supposed to help!” Remus snaps. “It’s supposed to end the conversation!”

Sirius lets the silence eat away at the resentment between them for a while. He feels utterly stupid and at the same time utterly frustrated with Remus’ stupidity. Which one of them is right, he wonders? Maybe it is Remus. Maybe he just has to give it up.

“Well I don’t see,” he says, because his ego gets the best of him, “why you can’t just make it easy on me and at least call me ugly instead of complimenting my ass.”

Remus stops right above the slippers, pauses, and then crouches to pick them up. He doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t look at Sirius. 

“I guess I just have poor self control,” he says, and it’s incredibly sad, like he’s blaming himself for every single mishap that’s happened relating to his lycanthropy for every year in the past, ever, with that one sentence. Every time someone gets hurt, every time something happens, it’s always about self-control. As if Remus can somehow control the wolf. As if it’s his responsibility to.

Sirius grabs his hair and blurts the first thing on his tongue. “Rem, it’s not always about the werewolf thing! Merlin!”

“Sirius, as long as I’m going to be a werewolf, it’s going to be about the werewolf thing!” Remus replies coldly and grips the slippers tighter. “Why can’t you understand that?”

Sirius stomps his foot and spins as Remus storms past him. “Fine!” he yells. Remus continues down the hall, a slipper in each hand, feet bare, flashing out of sight quickly. “You want it to always be about that? Fine!” he repeats again and takes a step forward. “Then will Werewolf Remus Lupin The Great please fucking werewolf-date me for the love of The Full Moon?!” he bellows. 

Remus stops. Stops dead. Stops so quickly that Sirius thinks he’s about to get killed, and he regrets it, he does, at least a little. But not all the way. Not the way he’s probably supposed to regret it. 

Then, before he even knows it, a slipper hits him square in the face. He stumbles back. Another follows it, harder this time. A shorter flight distance. Better aim.

“You think this is so funny?!” Remus demands, grabbing his robes and shaking him as soon as he’s close enough to do so. His eyes are burning. “You think you’re hilarious, don’t you? I’m supposed to make it easy for you? Who’s going to make it easy for me, huh? Who’s going to make it easy for me?!”

Sirius stares, entranced, at the rage monster. Remus isn’t running away this time, that’s for sure. 

“It’s not like I don’t fucking like you!” Remus snaps, and shoves him down, but he doesn’t retreat. “I told you I do! What, you aren’t happy? You need more? You can’t just live with adoration from afar, you have to have someone too? There’s tons of pretty people out there, Sirius! People that are people, not werewolves!”

“I don’t want those people!” Sirius protests. “They’re boring, and they aren’t neurotic, and they don’t solve crosswords when they’re nervous, a-and they don’t lick my fur clean!”

The joke makes Remus’ eyes widen, almost enough to force a change, but instead he just shakes his head and lets out an agonizing groan and grabs his own hair. The pain seems physical now. “I’m not allowed to date, Sirius! I’m not allowed to reproduce. Not anything! I’m sick, I’m diseased, I-I’m nothing but a host for a virus in the shape of a giant beastly THING! What do you want to do? Go to bed with a disease? A curse?”

Sirius flinches from the words. “Rem, you aren’t--… We can’t even reproduce anyway, what are you even talking about?”

“Doesn’t matter!” Remus barks, eyes bloodshot, despite the fact that he’s not crying at all. “Blood-born curses, they’re inside of you! With every pump of my heart, in every one of my fluids! I can infect you and then--”

“Infect me?” Sirius asks, looking startled. “Is that what this whole thing’s--“

The silence takes them both off-guard. Sirius doesn’t even know why he’s stopped talking at first, but then he seems to realize it. There’s footsteps. Both of them hear them. They’re coming up the staircase, along with the click of a cane. 

They look at each other and Remus mouthes ‘Filch’.

It is a devotion to their Marauder training how quickly they switch tracks from Fighting to Let’s Get The Fuck Out of Here, Buddy. Remus offers Sirius a hand, pulls him up to his feet again, and they scurry along the wall to the tapestry. It’s dark, so Sirius hopes they can get away with a stupid child’s trick, and lifts it, letting Remus slip in first. Then he slides in behind him, trying to press close to the wall. Their feet still stick out. They’re sore thumbs. Sore toes, that is. 

The footsteps draw level with the seventh floor. Sirius closes his mouth to reduce breathing noise, but just then, Remus elbows him in the side. 

Sirius looks at him, eyes wide, and lifts his eyebrows, trying to clench his teeth. Remus’ yellow eye rings return his gaze, and then lower pointedly to waist-level. Sirius looks too. 

There’s a door handle between them. 

Sirius looks back at Remus, and then nods silently, and Remus grabs the handle and tugs, just barely, clearly praying to ancient gods that it doesn’t creak. 

It doesn’t. Sirius peeks out from behind the tapestry one last time, to check how close Filch is, and then slips in right behind Remus, already half-forgetting their dilemma and ready to check out this strange new room that he’s sure wasn’t there before.

The strange new room adventure, however, ends up being very short. Mainly, this is because the strange new room is short – if it could even be called a room. It’s more of a closet. More of a meter, not more, of square space, really. As soon as he’s in, Remus’ hand on his chest stops him from advancing. Sirius opens his mouth to yelp as Remus steps on his foot, but the werewolf slaps his other hand over his mouth just in case. They both freeze, hearing more footsteps.

Sirius shoves himself further in and shuts the door somehow, before jamming his left shoulder into the wall and balancing himself on the wall that Remus is leaning against. They nearly bump noses. Their hot breath swirls around each other’s faces.

“Well,” Sirius murmurs, barely audible. “This is cozy.”

Remus is still for a moment, clearly listening, but the footsteps outside are so muffled they’re nearly gone. The door is very heavy, and clearly soundproof. Despite the cramped quarters, they are not necessarily badly hidden. Sirius can’t say he would complain. 

They remain silent, unmoving, while the sounds outside provide a vague narrative. Filch shuffles about, presumably, looking for the source of the ruckus. Meanwhile, the source is cramped together into a space barely enough for a single large man, bumping shoulders. There is hot air here now because of their breathing. Their bodies are warmed between the cold stones of the castle. Their thighs scissor down below, but neither says anything. They pointedly don’t move, don’t make eye contact.

Finally, Filch’s shuffling dies away without even the emotional climax of the tapestry being checked.

“Now we can talk,” Sirius says.

The werewolf beside him doesn’t look exactly pleased. “What is there to talk about?” His voice is still low, but now he looks more apt to run away again. Except there’s nowhere for him to run to. 

“About what you just said. Infecting me. Is that what you’re worried about?”

Remus looks up at him, into his eyes, and then snaps the contact clean off, like they had never looked at each other in their entire lives before. Like he would much rather look at the only corner of the wall he can see in this tiny quarter. 

“Moony,” Sirius continues quietly. “We had this scare once already. You bite and nip me all the time during the full moon. It doesn’t affect Padfoot. If I’m a dog, the bites don’t register.”

“So you want me to date a dog,” Remus mutters under his breath.

Sirius snorts and then smiles. “Moon—Remus, fuck, what in the world do you think a relationship is? Your teeth in my shoulder all seven days of the week? Not that I’d mind, but…”

Remus blushes, and immediately, like a chain reaction, Sirius does too. But he has more experience, so he recovers expertly by clearing his throat. 

“Look, the point is, all I’m asking for is some snogging, some inappropriate touching under the desk…” Sirius explains. “What’s so wrong about that?”

There’s nothing wrong with that, obviously. Sirius thinks that, at least. But Remus doesn’t. He looks so lost, and so heartbroken already, that every attempt to make this better seems to only make it worse. 

“You know that’s never going to be enough for you,” he replies to Sirius quietly.

It gets even quieter. Now, at least, they’re looking at each other. Now, at least, Remus’ eyes meet his. They’re incredibly honest, and Sirius tries to match that honesty for it to be fair but instead he just ends up confused. 

“What are you talking about?” Sirius asks. 

“You know,” Remus says, and swallows. It’s incredibly loud in the small space. “You always need to make everything grandiose. Everything is a show for you. If you go, you go big. If you go, you go all the way.”

Sirius’ heart knots into a rock and then drops to his stomach – and then hits his balls on the way down, almost making his nether regions twitch. But there are more important things at stake. Remus is right. His is always a show. No matter what he’s doing, it has to be. He has to prove things to everyone. His parents, his stupid brother, this whole bloody school. He has things to prove, so he has to shout loud. He has to shout louder than his father yells. Louder than his mother screeches. He can’t just allow himself to be swept away under the rug, because if that were to be the case, he’d just die.

But Remus is the opposite. His survival depends on not being noticed. He can’t be grandiose. He can’t be a show. He has to be silent, to slip unnoticed, so that no one has a chance to find anything out, to question anything, to ever ask him anything. If anyone found out he is a werewolf, his life comes crashing down. If anyone pays too much attention to him, he runs that risk. And every time he runs that risk, he runs and hides. That’s his survival tactic. 

Sirius feels like a downright moron, but his mouth is faster than his brain, which is still struggling to find a solution.

“I’d never make you do something you didn’t--”

“Sirius, it doesn’t matter,” Remus says.

“But I--”

“I can’t,” Remus insists. “Not because I don’t want to. I do. In my wildest dreams, we could try it. We could walk together. Snog some. Let other people see us. Let other people catch us snogging. In my wildest dreams. I wouldn’t care.”

Sirius swallows loudly next.

“But in my wildest dreams, I’m human,” Remus says. “Instead of a public, walking martyr for an ancient curse. Instead of someone who is waiting to die. Instead of someone who can infect you, or kill you… I don’t know which would be worse.”

Sirius leans in slightly, and Remus doesn’t really pull away. Maybe because he has nowhere to pull away to.

“Well, we’re not in your wildest dreams,” Sirius agrees. “And you’re right. You are a public spectacle. Dumbledore is watching. Pomfrey. Your parents. I know they are. I know.”

Remus closes his eyes.

“You’re right.” Sirius continues quietly. He lifts his hands off of the wall and puts them on either side of Remus’ jaws instead. He slides his fingers up to the other’s temples. His thumb touches the tip of the boy’s eyelash. “Forget about it. I don’t want to date you if you don’t want me to. That wasn’t what I wanted. I didn’t want public – sure, that’s what I do most of the time, but if that’s what you’re so scared of, forget it.”

The werewolf gazes up at him, still unsure. Now he is the one who is befuddled. “W…hat?”

“Well, I was just thinking – like you said. Everyone is always watching you. But they’re not right now. So just for a moment, humor me, will you?” Sirius asks. “Not for me.   
Just for yourself. I’m tired of seeing you put yourself down.”

“Sirius--” Remus begins, but Sirius presses his thumb over his mouth. 

“Remus, be nice to my Moony. And Moony, you have to be nice to Remus. Because Moony, Remus, they’re both the same person. Your furry little problem and you – they’re both there. I like them both, even if you don’t. And I just want you to be honest with yourself, just this once.” Sirius leans in a bit more, and their foreheads touch. “Rem, no one is watching.”

Remus closes his eyes slowly.

“No one will know anything,” Sirius continues. “So just pretend, just for a moment, that this is your wildest dream. What do you WANT to do?”

He leans in, but this time, it’s not him who closes the distance. Instead it’s Remus.

At first it’s hesitant. Almost an apology, about to be followed by rejection. Their lips are chapped. Their fingers are clammy and cold on each other’s skin. Their knees bump weirdly against hips, the wall. Someone steps on someone else’s foot. Remus starts to pull away, and then, startlingly, comes back again.

This time it’s stronger. He grabs Sirius again, like he did that one night. He grabs his hair, grabs his shirt collar, and yanks him closer. He wants this. He wants this as badly as he wanted the Marauders in the first year. It was a chance. A chance to be normal, a chance to experience things the way normal kids were meant to. 

Hand in the hair slides down to Sirius’ neck – the other is a fist twisting his pajamas. Their mouths are stupidly together still, and for some reason Sirius doesn’t find this overbearing. It’s like they’re sharing oxygen in a sub-water space tomb. Like they’re dying, and this is their last chance. To do… whatever. Like the way Remus is tasting his bottom row of teeth, and the way Sirius can feel the bottom of his hair being tugged by Remus’ tight knuckles. And it feels like that little sting of barely-there-pain just serves to sweeten the crest of their groping-kissing-whatever.

And then Remus nips at his lip and Sirius moans. Right into his mouth. Probably with all his night-time breath. 

Remus jerks back, startled out of his daydream.

“Dontstop,” Sirius gasps and yanks him back again, slams the werewolf’s head back against the wall, drags his hands down the front of Remus’ shirt and around his waist. Then pulls them up, bunching up the crinkled white shirt until his pinkies find skin. It’s hot, and he can feel Remus’ ribcage pulsing out and in with every shocked breath of air. Each of his scars expands and contracts like a complex railroad of breathing traffic. 

They’re not even making out at this point – Sirius is just stupidly breathing his smelly hot breath into the crook of Remus’ jaw, lips sliding clumsily somewhere in the general vicinity of the nape of his neck. And Remus is tilting his head back more and more, as if he wants him to keep doing whatever he’s doing. 

Sirius opens his mouth on a whim and drags his teeth along the skin.

Remus whimpers in reply and slides a few inches down the wall. His knee comes up in a leverage effect and grinds right into Sirius’ crotch. It’s glorious. Sirius literally sees stars. Though that might be because they’re quickly running out of oxygen in there – but it also gives his raging hard on an encouraging round of applause and makes it even harder.

“Fuck, Rem,” he whines.

Remus, the quiet boy in the back of the library, the modest boy with perfect grades, gives a husky chuckle and does it again, but more deliberately.

“FUCK, REM,” Sirius yelps, and then crushes his hips against the other’s thigh. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“Your vocabulary is astounding,” Remus breathes, and Sirius pulls back and crushes his vocabulary squarely against Remus’ vocabulary and they talk, emphatically, against each other’s respective opinions. Most of the conversation involves biting each other’s tongues. Sirius slides his hand under Remus’ knee and grinds up, and at the same time, Remus grabs his hair and wrenches his head back with a smooth and powerful motion of his fist. 

And Sirius cums with the sheer shock and passion of it, right into the space between them, right into the crumpled fabric. Pathetically. With a trembling whine of joy. 

“Jesus,” Remus murmurs, and lets go. “Sorry…?”

Sirius looks up at him, and his eyes have to roll around in his head for a while like a caricature cartoon before they find their respective places again. Then he looks at Remus, and Remus looks at him, and they breathe together.

“I’m not sorry,” he chokes out.

Remus takes his goddamned time, he really does. But finally, after a few seconds of awkward silence, he grins a little bit, and lights up red. And Sirius knows perfectly in that moment that he isn’t sorry either.

**


End file.
